Plan for Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High deployments

In this article

This guidance is for IT pros who are driving deployments of Office 365 in US federal government entities or other entities that handle data that’s subject to government regulations and requirements, where the use of Microsoft 365 Government – GCC High is appropriate to meet these requirements.

Note

If your organization has already met the Microsoft 365 Government – GCC High eligibility requirements and applied for and been accepted into the program, you can skip steps 1 and 2 and go directly to step 3.

The Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High environment provides compliance with US government requirements for cloud services. In addition to enjoying the features and capabilities of Office 365, organizations benefit from the following features that are unique to Microsoft 365 Government – GCC High:

You might want to transfer the tables of information in the service description into an Excel workbook and add two columns: Relevant for my organization Y/N and Meets the needs of my organization Y/N. Then you can review this list with your colleagues to confirm that this service meets your organization’s needs.

Decision points

Decide whether Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High is appropriate for your organization.

Confirm that your organization meets eligibility requirements.

Note

Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High is only available in the United States. Non–US Government customers can choose from a number of Office 365 Government plans.

Step 2. Apply for Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High

We recommend that you take time to carefully review your admin and security settings before you modify them, and consider impacts on compliance before you make any changes to the default security settings.

Decision point

Decide whether you’ll need to modify any of the default Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High security settings, resolving to first understand the impact of any changes you might make.

Step 4. Understand which Teams capabilities are currently available in Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High

To accommodate the requirements of our government cloud customers, there are some differences between Teams in Microsoft 365 Government - GCC High and Teams in the Enterprise plans. Refer to the following table to see which features are available.

Step 6. Deploy Teams for collaboration

After you’ve been onboarded to Microsoft 365 Government – GCC High, follow the recommended deployment path outlined in How to roll out Microsoft Teams. Be sure to engage with your Adoption and Change Management team and Teams champions.

You can also work with FastTrack or your chosen partner to onboard the service.